


My homeland has many palm-trees and the thrush-song fills its air (don’t allow me, God, to die without getting back to where I belong)

by wearealltalesintheend



Series: to a flat world of changing lights and noise [4]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M, and Dirk just wants to follow the universe really, the bird is a good listener
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 22:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9518006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearealltalesintheend/pseuds/wearealltalesintheend
Summary: "He doesn’t know what kind of bird is that, but its black eyes shine in the sunlight and seem to say go on, what is your story? and who is Dirk to deny a bird?He starts talking."or, as things start to fall into place, Dirk waits.





	

**Author's Note:**

> He-ey!
> 
> This time the title was taken from the brazilian poem by Gonçalvez Dias "Canção do Exílio" in the original portuguese or "Song of the Exile" in the translation. I also would like to say I don't know anything about birds, but the thrush is supposed to be th robin?
> 
> Second, from now on there will be roads and traveling and let the record show I am not american and therefore have no idea about american geography or american roads. If I make mistakes, please do point it out and help me fix it.
> 
> Third, thanks and enjoy.

In the window, there is a bird.

 

The wall has a tiny window with ugly iron bars and a bird has perched itself there. It cocks its head, pecks the bars, accomodates itself on the concrete.

 

Dirk doesn’t dare move, he tries to stay still, holds his breath, balls his fists. The cell is boring and cold and damp and the bird is the first and only visit he will have, so Dirk fidgets and tries not to make sudden movements and scare it away.

 

( _he remembers, before running away, before Riggings, before Blackwing, there was a little bird. It had been a small thing, soft feathers and broken wings and low singing )_

 

He doesn’t know what kind of bird is that, but its black eyes shine in the sunlight and seem to say _go on, what is your story?_ and who is Dirk to deny a bird?

 

He starts talking.

 

 _You see,_ he tells the bird, _this is not a happy story, at least not entirely, of course, there are happy moments and happy feelings, but it also has a sad start and a sad right now. I can’t tell you about the ending, though, because I wouldn’t want to give you spoilers, those are awfully annoying you know, and also because I clearly don’t know how it will end since I am part of the story. I know how I want it to end, of course, I hope it will have a happy ending, but anyway, it doesn’t matter because stories never end how we want it to. Besides I’d hardly be a hero, now would I? Trapped in this dreadfully boring room. That’s not very heroic of me. But then again, I’m not a hero, you know, I’m a holistic detective, I solve crimes. I even have an agency with a partner and an assistant. Ward, actually. Well, friend. Well, best friend._

 

The bird chirps understandingly, cocks his head again, tries to fly through the bars, settles for the windowsill.

 

( _he doesn’t remember what kind of bird it was or how it looked like, but he remembers bringing it to his room and bandaging its left wing. He remembers the bird singing and it was grateful and content and smiling and )_

 

So Dirk tells the bird perched on the window how he had been thrown into a van and then there had suddenly been a cloth rudely pressed to his face and a funny smell and then the world had faded into darkness.

 

He tells it about waking up in the back of the same van, handcuffed and gagged, sun barely filtering in and shadows stretching across, the truck lurching and jolting along the road. He tells it about bumping his head successively against the metal and bruises blooming and sore limbs. He shows it the black and blue and purple and red covering his arms. He tells it how the guards won’t give him band aids or anything at all, really.

 

Dirk tells the small bird about the light blinding his eyes as the van’s doors are _finally_ open and he is hauled out of it and pushed around, stumbling and falling into the current cell they are now.

 

_( he doesn’t quite remember his mother, but he remembers asking her about the bird. He can’t recall what she says, he tries to find the words but it’s like trying to hold water in his hands, he grabs a handful but it inevitably slips through his fingers. He knows she told him all about it and then something else too. She warned him of something but his mind comes up blank. There is only the memory of the memory of the memory of a bird )_

 

There is a pause. The bird chirps, blinks, and Dirk imagines it’s saying _holy shit._ Holy shit, indeed.

Dirk then tells the bird about before the van. About the cafe and the way the air smelled like coffee and how his milkshake had been dripping on the table and how he couldn’t even say goodbye.

 

He wishes he could’ve said it, could’ve given Todd and Farah his farewell because the case had been over and they had stayed. People never stay, but they did.

 

And he tells it how they had all solved the case and saved Lydia. How they had faced weird cults and time machines and death mazes and eletric ghosts and a kitten that was actually a shark. Dirk also thinks about the kitten a lot, more specifically how they lost the poor thing in the woods.

 

Dirk tells him how there’s an ache sitting on his chest, an open wound festering and ripping and hurting, and he’s not sure what it means. He can feel it deep inside his bones, a longing for something he can’t quite grasp. There is a black hole inside him and it’s very demanding of his energy.

 

He tells it how incredibly he misses Todd and Farah. How cruel of the universe it was to let him have it and the  rip it away. Now that he knew how it felt to have friends, _family_ , he missed it with the pain of certainty and emptiness and wrongness.

 

_( he remembers now, finally, what it was that his mother told him about the bird. She told him it was a bluebird )_

 

The bird looks at him and Dirk looks at the bird. There isn’t much more to tell it.

_There,_ he says, _now you know my story._

 

There is still things about Blackwing and CIA facilities he didn’t mention, but that’s the past of someone else, someone he used to be, someone he left behind along with the name. Those memories belong to someone else, a stranger, a nightmare, someone he buried sixteen years ago under the rain in an empty alley.

 

Except, he did a rather poor job of it, didn’t he? Because here he is, back with Blackwing, back in a cell. There is something to be said about karma.

 

Dirk is wondering if he should tell the bird about this stranger’s story when there is suddenly a guard throwing the door open and the bird chirps alarmed and bats his wings and flies away.

 

The guard sneers and when he talks it’s loud and grating and it makes his head hurt. He wants Dirk to get out but Dirk knows he can’t, he shouldn’t, he mustn’t. It’s clear to him he needs to stay, just a little while longer, why isn’t the man listening to him? The universe is being particularly forthcoming with this, Dirk should _stay._

 

But the guard hauls him and pulls him out of the cell and the last thing Dirk sees is a brown feather on the floor by the window and what was it that they said about hope and feathers and windows?

 

_( he remembers now the bird was a bluebird and he remembers it flying around his room, but he doesn’t remember what happened to it. One memory it’s there and in the next it’s not. But the knowledge is an itch on his brain and it’s on the tip of his tongue )_

 

The door closes and then he is being pushed around the maze of doors and corridors until the world explodes in colors before him. Dirk looks around, the building behind him, the scarce trees on either side, the empty road in front  of them. There is still a glaring wrongness about it all, everything screaming for him to _stay there._

 

He sits on the back of a van and there is a small glass window on the back doors. Dirk watches the road as the vehicle starts moving, and if he squints and tilts his head he thinks he can see a small dot far away in the distance, beyond the yellowed fields and even further from the building. The road is empty in front if their van, Dirk knows it, but from where he is sitting on the back he can see a tiny dot miles away and he doesn’t know who is driving that car or where they are going or what is their story, but they are there and Dirk doesn’t feel so alone anymore.

 

_( the van jolts and lurches and he remembers what happened to his bluebird. He remembers what it was that his mother warned him. She had reminded him the neighbour had a tomcat.)_

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hey hey! You made it to th end!
> 
> Now, leaving a kudo or a comment is very, very nice, but you can come tell me all about it on _[my tumblr](http://wearealltalesintheend.tumblr.com/)_ all the same. 
> 
> And hey? thanks.


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